


I Bet My Life For You

by emraldmoon



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Irondad, Minor whump, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 12:43:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19888018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emraldmoon/pseuds/emraldmoon
Summary: Peter is self-sacrificial and is always willing to give his life for those he loves. Tony doesn't like this.





	I Bet My Life For You

**Author's Note:**

> Based off the prompt by leopard-prompts on Tumblr, “I can’t keep looking out for you if you’re going to keep acting like this!”

Peter didn’t know why Tony was so angry. It wasn’t like he went into the battle  _ planning  _ to sacrifice himself - it was just a fight-or-flight response, and it was crazy Tony didn’t see that.

Look, Peter’s not going to lie - he saw Tony as a father figure, and he couldn’t let his father figure be impaled on a spear, so he jumped in front of him. No big deal. Well, sure, he now had a large gash in his side, and, okay, those first few moments of him recovering on the pavement as Tony took care of the offending villain-of-the-week were painful with a capital  _ P _ , but what was he going to do, let Tony  _ die? _

“Yes!” Tony answered in a yell as Peter tried to justify his point. Peter slouched back against the couch in the Avengers tower as he rolled his eyes, but winced when the action pulled at his hours-old wound beneath the bandages Bruce had put on it. “It’s better me than you.”

“You don’t get to make that choice,” Peter argued back. The look Tony gave him, the wide-eyed, red-faced glare, made Peter want to curl up into a ball and concede defeat, but he couldn’t, not today. This was the day Tony stopped treating him like a  _ kid _ , and more like a superhero. He was  _ sixteen _ , for goodness’ sake. He was practically paying taxes. He could make his own choices.

“As long as you’re a minor, and as long as May, your legal guardian, is unaware of the dangers you face every day as Spider-Man, then, yeah, I do.”

Peter groaned as he sat back against the couch and shut his eyes against the pain, not wanting to give Tony the satisfaction.

“Peter.”

“Hmm.”

“ _ Peter _ .” Peter reluctantly opened his eyes to glare at Tony, who was still standing with his arms tightly crossed in front of the couch. “You  _ never  _ do that again, okay? I can’t keep looking out for you if you’re going to keep acting like this!” Peter scoffed. “Look, you can hold your own. I get that. It’s great, but that’s  _ it _ . You don’t cover for anyone else. Take care of yourself, get out safe. Am I clear?”

Peter didn’t answer. He continued to glare at Tony, but Tony wasn’t going to accept that. “ _ Am I clear? _ ”

Peter sighed and tilted his head back against the couch. He could feel the blood beginning to seep through the bandages on his side, but he wasn’t going to tell Tony that. Plus, Bruce had just applied them, like, thirty minutes ago. Peter didn’t want to bother him again. The wound would be fine, he was sure.

“Fine,” Peter finally sighed, and Tony nodded his head sharply, before turning and leaving the room without another word.

Peter pushed his fist against his mouth and yelled into it. Tony was treating him like a kid. He  _ wasn’t _ a kid, he was a superhero, and it was insulting that Tony didn’t see that. If Tony could sacrifice his life for Peter’s (which Peter knew he would do in a heartbeat), why couldn’t he return the favour? What was so awful about saving someone else’s life?

Peter was good on keeping his word. Whenever he made a promise, he would never go back on it - but what he just said to Tony, there was  _ no way  _ he was honoring that. Technically, he didn’t say the word  _ promise _ , and even if he did, Peter would jump in front of a train to save Tony. He would do whatever it took to keep Tony safe.

The opportunity arose not even a week later.

Happy had just dropped Peter off at the tower for his weekly lab session and Tony was greeting him at the door when Friday sounded the alarm. Apparently, there were  _ still  _ leftover alien weapons from Sokovia, which another civilian who didn’t get enough attention as a child was now abusing.

Peter reached for his suit in his backpack at the same time Tony called his suit to him. Tony grabbed Peter’s wrist before he could reach his backpack’s zipper (luckily, the Iron Man gauntlet hadn’t reached his hand yet). His eyes were wide and serious as he demanded, “ _ Stay _ .” Before Peter could respond (or argue), Tony was in the Iron Man suit and flying away.

Peter glowered after him. On the one hand, Tony was mad.  _ Mad _ -mad. Livid. He hadn’t even had a week to calm down since the last fiasco, and any wrong move from Peter would have his suit confiscated yet again.

On the other hand, Peter was an honest-to-goodness  _ superhero _ . This was literally his job, the whole reason why he had his suit in the first place. If he was scared to use it, what was the point?

Peter’s entire thought process was completed in a split-second because, honestly, he already knew the answer.  _ Of course _ he was going to help. He’d probably be grounded for, like, a day or two afterward because he was  _ sure  _ Tony would be more proud than mad, right? Peter wouldn’t do anything wrong. He would prove to Tony that he could do the right thing, and  _ boom _ . Trust reinstated.

Peter slipped into his suit faster than he ever had before and swung out of the tower after Tony. He tried to go as fast as possible so he didn’t lose track of his mentor, but it turned out that was unnecessary. The battle was happening right outside of the tower.

There wasn’t just one villain, but  _ four _ , all armed with a different glowing-purple weapons - and currently, they were all aimed at Iron Man. After all, there was no one else to aim at, with the other Avengers tackling issues elsewhere, or just dealing with personal affairs.

It seemed as though this attack was planned. After all, how could the villains possibly know Tony and Peter were the only ones available to defend New York? (Yet another reason why Peter couldn’t sit this one out.)

Peter swung into action, aiming for the guy closest to him, who was holding an advanced-looking gun, one so large it had to be gripped with both hands. Pair the heavy gun with the fact that his attention was solely focused on Iron Man, and it was  _ way  _ too easy for Peter to knock him off balance with a kick. He fell one way and his gun flew the other, Peter webbing them both to the ground as he swung to where the remaining three villains were now forming a triangle around Iron Man.

Peter watched, unseen, from the top of a nearby building as Tony sent a blast towards one of the villains, the one nearest to Peter, but he dodged easily, bringing Tony’s attention to the blue-and-red vigilante behind him.

Peter swore he saw the eyes on the Iron Man mask widen.

“ _ Incoming call from Tony Stark _ ,” Karen’s cheery voice notified Peter, and he felt his blood run cold as Karen connected the call.

“Hey, Mr. Star-”

“Don’t you  _ hey  _ me, kid.” Tony grunted as he shot another blast in the opposite direction and hit his target, knocking another villain off his feet before the poor guy could shoot.  _ Two down, two to go _ . “Go home,  _ now _ .”

Peter jumped off the building, flipping backwards to land beside Tony on the ground. The two remaining villains with a crossbow and something that looked like a scarily-advanced taser moved to accommodate their additional opponent.

“Counter-offer,” Peter chirped as he stepped toward the villain with a taser and dodged his initial attack. “I help you take down these guys-” he threw a punch, stumbling when he missed his target- “and then we go home  _ togeth _ -”

Peter was cut off abruptly as a new pain erupted in his side, right where his old wound was. He fell, gasping, to his knees.  _ The taser _ , his mind so helpfully provided.

“Peter?” Tony’s voice rang loudly in his ears. “So help me, if you’re  _ hurt _ -”

_ Don’t disappoint. Don’t screw up. _

Peter sent a blind kick behind him, and apparently it landed on its target when Peter heard a grunt and the electrifying pain was removed, if slightly, from his side. Peter fell onto his back and winced against the buzzing in his ears.

“Fine.” He forced his voice to sound cheery and not at all tasered, which was hard when his teeth were grit together in pain. “I’m fine. I’m not hurt.”

“Good.” There was a grunt from the other end of the line and the sound of metal against metal. Tony’s opponent was still going. “You can-”  _ pant- _ “go home, and  _ wait for me there _ .”

Peter shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. He felt his old wound reopen, the feeling of blood sandwiched between his skin and his suit unpleasant, but he fought to stand anyways. He refocused his attention just a few steps away, where the Iron Man suit had its back to him and was approaching the final villain with the crossbow.

Tony was deflecting every glowing purple arrow that came his way, but it seemed every hit sent shockwaves through his body. The suit’s movements were slower. Every hit left more and more dents in what should’ve been indestructible armour.

Peter was about to jump in to help him when he saw movement off to his right.

The second villain Peter had knocked down was lying on his side, but somehow, he had dragged himself over to reach his gun - and was now aiming it at Iron Man’s back.

The barrel began to glow purple as Peter’s eyes widened in panic. Tony didn’t see him. Peter wasn’t close enough to the villain to stop him, and his webs wouldn’t get there in time, but he  _ was  _ close enough to Tony-

Before he had more time to register what was happening, to consider his decision, Peter threw himself between Tony and the gun. His world was lit up by purple before it faded to black.

  * • •



Tony was scrolling through his Starkpad as he sat beside Peter’s bed in the medbay, reading, but not absorbing any information. How could he? His kid was lying just a few feet away from him, unconscious, because  _ he  _ had failed to protect him.

Tony  _ felt  _ like he should be understanding the words he read, but as soon as he read them, they were in one ear (eye?), out the other. Except for capital  _ P _ s. Although it was just a letter, whenever he saw them, all Tony could think of was  _ Peter _ . It had been 24 hours, and he  _ still  _ wasn’t awake. Why wasn’t he awake?

Bruce, after commenting on Peter showing up injured in the medbay twice in one week, said Peter would be fine. He was lucky he was enhanced, as the seemingly magical bullet acted as a normal bullet, but with the additional advantage of being hot as an iron. To a normal human such as Tony, it would’ve ripped through his armour like it was Play-Doh and essentially burn up his entire nervous system, but all Peter had to deal with was scorch marks on his chest around the wound. At least, that was how Bruce had explained it.

Tony’s opinion was much different. That wasn’t  _ all Peter had to deal with _ , that was what Peter was  _ cursed  _ with because  _ he _ had been careless enough to let a kid into battle. Who  _ did  _ that? Who let a sixteen-year-old  _ baby  _ into a battle with alien technology? Not someone who was supposedly a hero to the people, Tony was sure.

Tony had thanked Bruce and called May as soon as he was dismissed, letting her know Peter was going to be spending the weekend for a last-minute internship opportunity. She asked to talk to him, and Tony had to make up some lie about how Peter was really busy at the moment and couldn’t come to the phone, the entire time wondering how different this conversation would be going if Peter  _ wasn’t  _ enhanced, if he was even more unlucky and the bullet had gone two inches to the left, into his heart. Tony had to hang up the phone pretty quickly after that to prevent May hearing his panic attack from the other end of the line.

Tony was scrolling through the newsfeeds, reports flashing by quicker and quicker with Tony staring lifelessly at the screen just to give himself something to do, just to keep the panic attack at bay, when he heard the mattress shift beside him.

It took every ounce of Tony’s self-control to not toss his Starkpad to the side and rush to Peter when he felt the boy’s eyes on him. Instead, he merely turned his head to the side to make eye contact with one groggy-looking Peter Parker.

“Good morning,” Tony said simply, hoping his tone conveyed calm and stability, rather than the fact that his heart was beating impossibly fast for a mere mortal.

“Mis’r S’ark,” Peter mumbled, his words barely intelligible - but Tony understood them. Tony knew his kid’s voice by heart.

“That’s me.” He set his Starkpad aside and leaned forward to be closer to Peter as the boy smiled - but that quickly turned to a grimace when he tried to push himself up to his elbows. Tony couldn’t hold his concern back any longer.

“Hey, hey. Stay down, champ,” he muttered as he stood and brought his hands toward Peter’s chest, but stopped them inches before they could make contact, the white bandages encompassing the kid filling his rapidly-swimming vision. Suddenly, the injury beneath the bandages was all he could see, memories flashing in and out of his vision from when Bruce first peeled off the red suit with hints of blue that were covered with blood.

Peter saw how wide his mentor’s eyes were and the fact that Tony’s hands were hovering over his chest rather than touching, and Peter looked down to his chest in a panic.

“What happened?” he asked simply, words becoming more articulate the longer he was awake. His voice brought Tony back to reality, and his eyes snapped to the kid to see Peter wasn’t alarmed - he was simply confused.

Anger came back full-force, like water breaking through floodgates. He pulled his arms back to his sides and stood to his full height as he regarded Peter with hardened eyes.

“I’ll tell you what happened,” he said stiffly, teeth gritted. Peter looked up at him suddenly, brow furrowed. “I told you to  _ stay _ . Stay inside. Stay  _ safe _ \- and what did you do?”

“Mister St-”

“You did  _ exactly  _ the one thing I  _ did not  _ want you doing,  _ again _ . You did it  _ twice _ , Parker!” Tony’s voice grew in volume as he stepped closer to the bed. To his credit, Peter didn’t look scared, or worried - he just looked  _ determined _ , like he was ready to argue his point as soon as Tony was done.

“Mis-”

“I told you,  _ I told you  _ I didn’t want you doing that. I said,  _ it’s better me than you _ . I said,  _ take care of yourself. Get out safe. _ Do you remember any of that?”

“What I remember is Ben dying in front of my eyes!” Peter shouted suddenly, shutting Tony up. Tony’s lips clamped shut as he stared down at Peter’s face, really seeing him for the first time since he woke up. The heavy bags under his eyes. The way his lips were pinched together whenever he wasn’t talking - or yelling. “I remember not doing anything to save him. I remember hearing the news that my dad - that  _ he  _ had died, and feeling  _ useless _ .”

Peter stopped talking suddenly, looking down into his lap as tears began to spring forward. He fruitlessly tried to blink them away.

Tony sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling like an asshole. “Peter, I-”

“I wasn’t going to let it happen again.”

Tony hesitated for a moment before deciding,  _ yes, this is happening _ , and pulling up his chair until it was directly beside Peter’s bed. He sat down, keeping his eyes on Peter’s the entire time.

“Talk.” Peter blinked up at Tony, part sad, part confused. “I feel like there are some things you want to get off your chest, so….” He waved his hand in Peter’s direction and sat back in his chair. “Talk.”

Peter fell back against his pillow and let his eyes trail up to the ceiling, debating how to begin. Tony never let his attention wander from Peter, not even for a second. He wouldn’t dare, not when his kid needed him.

“I couldn’t do anything… as Peter,” he began, his voice simultaneously quiet and carrying the weight of the world. “And I lost three people. Three parental figures, two…” his eyes flashed to Tony- “father figures. I- I don’t know, I’m  _ Spider-Man  _ now, so I figured I could do more, you know? I don’t….” Peter sighed, then closed his eyes. “I don’t want to lose another one. I  _ can’t  _ lose another one. Not again.”

His eyes flickered back open, but this time they were brimmed with tears as they stared unseeing at the ceiling. “I  _ had  _ to do something, Mr. Stark,” he whispered. “I couldn’t lose you. And if I have to give up my life to make sure  _ you  _ stay safe, well, that’s what I’ll do.”

_ Wow.  _ Tony couldn’t think.  _ So  _ many details to unpack. So many emotions, so much honesty… but mainly, father figure. Peter thought of Tony as his  _ father figure _ .

Oof. Emotions. Tony wasn’t good at emotions - at least, not the way Peter was expressing them. It was time to take matters into his own hands.

“I feel the same way about you, you know.” Peter’s head snapped up to stare at Tony, wide-eyed, and Tony smirked. The double-meaning had its effect. “If I have to give up my life to keep  _ you _ safe, I would do it in a heartbeat.” Peter crashed back onto the bed, looking disappointed - just in time for Tony to deliver his final line.

“And, I also feel like you’re my son-figure. Wait, is that a thing? I feel like that should be a thing-” Tony was forced out of his thoughts by Peter’s beaming smile. Tony chuckled. “Yeah, kiddo, the feeling’s mutual. You’re still grounded, though. Until you’re 21.” Peter smiled and lay his head back on his pillow, this time facing Tony.

“Well, now we have an issue, because if we would both die for each other… I feel like we should sort this out now. Otherwise we’d have to set up a court date, and-”

“I should be allowed to,” Peter jut in, and Tony looked down at him in amusement. “I’m enhanced, and-”

“Hi enhanced, I’m dad.”

The words were out of his mouth before Tony even realized what he was saying. He looked down at Peter in horror, but Peter… was  _ laughing _ . Well, it seemed to be more like  _ wheezing _ with all the bandages wrapped around his chest, but Tony didn’t try to stop it. The kid was  _ happy _ . Plus, laughter was nowhere on Bruce’s extensive list of  _ Things Peter CAN NOT Do _ , and so Tony let it continue… and even joined in.

This whole  _ die for each other _ thing, that could wait for another day. Right now, it was just Tony and his kid. They were safe, they were healthy, they were  _ together _ , and there was nothing more important than that.


End file.
